A Murderous Unity

Brad Mayer bradley.mayer at ebay.sun.com
Wed Jul 11 18:10:41 PDT 2001


This from ZNet. The answer, of course, is that "Western liberal democracy" - putting aside the (scientific) matter that these states are actually organized as republics, not democracies - is just as capable of horrendous crimes as any Stalinist or fascist dictatorship. Indeed, even more capable, as I would argue from historical fact, since these states have always been, most successfully, implicitly or explicitly organized along race supremacist and ruling class - i.e., imperialist - lines.

Intellectuals are surprised by this because, influenced by the mass media and educational systems of these states, they think along moralistic and not scientific lines. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, What a Wonderful Unity!

By Uri Avnery

In all its 53 years, Israel has never been like it is now.

The entire Israeli public seems to have become a flock

of parrots.

No matter who is talking - the seller of fallafel or a

professor of history, a taxi driver or Our Political

Correspondent, an army officer or a member of the

Knesset - all of them endlessly repeat the same seven

or eight slogans, in exactly the same words:

"Barak turned every stone on the way to peace."

"He offered Arafat (almost) everything he asked

for. And what did we get in return? War."

"Arafat (the villainous, cheating, lying, corrupt),

instead of accepting the generous offer with both

hands, started a campaign of violence and

terror."

"This proves that the Palestinians never wanted

peace. They want to annihilate the State of Israel

(throw us into the sea)."

" The right of return is a plot to destroy Israel."

"We have no partner for peace."

"The struggle is not about the settlements, but

about Jaffa and Haifa."

"The conflict just doesn't have a solution."

Each of these slogans is wrong and can be easily

disproved by the facts. But that is not the main thing.

The main thing is the total uniformity of the public

discourse in Israel, including the voters of Barak and

Sharon, the members of the Labor and Likud, the

far-right Moledet and the Meretz parties.

This by itself could be the subject of an interesting

scientific research project. How does this happen? We

have no Goebbels-like ministry of propaganda.

Dissidents don't disappear in the Gulag, as in Stalinist

Russia. Intellectuals are nor dragged to labor camps,

as in the Cultural Revolution of Mao. They are not even

compelled to drink castor oil, as in Mussolini's Italy.

So how does it happen? How does an entire people in

a democracy behave as if hypnotized? How do the free

media - the dozens of newspapers, channels and

networks, with the hundreds of commentators and

correspondents, turn themselves into the organs of a

uniform, primitive propaganda? How does such a

system of brain-washing come into being without a

cruel, omnipotent dictator, but as a kind of voluntary

auto-brain-washing?

This is especially odd, because the main message of

this brain-washing is not cheerful and optimistic, but as

pessimistic as can be. It says that there is no chance

for peace, and never was. That the war is eternal. That

"they" will always want to kill us, and that there is

nothing we can do about it. That anyone who thinks

otherwise (if such a person exists) lives on the moon.

Stranger still, this message does cause some

depression, but that is not the only reaction. When the

air escaped from the balloon of peace, one could hear

a vast sigh of relief.

A foreigner will not understand this. We do.

The Oslo agreement, which descended on the public

without any prior preparation, created a shock. I

remember the day it was signed. I was in Jerusalem. In

the Eastern part, there was euphoria. The Palestinians,

together with some Israeli peace activists, drank

champagne in the American Colony hotel, rejoiced

together on the steps of Orient House. In the streets,

bands of Palestinian youngsters were wandering about,

waving the (forbidden) Palestinian flag and nearly

kissing the Israeli border policemen. When I crossed

into West Jerusalem, I found a strange, hesitant,

thoughtful mood, cautiously optimistic. I was invited to a

TV broadcast and found the same mood in the studio.

Since then, for eight years, Israel has been in the grips

of a painful syndrome, called "cognitive dissonance".

This is a situation where incoming new information

collides with old, deeply rooted attitudes.

Every person (and, it seems, an entire people, too) has

a world-view, a fixed pattern of perceptions, a kind of

mental map that directs their thoughts and reactions.

Without such a map, the person (or people) feel lost in

a world of chaos. The map gives them security; they

know where they are and where they are going. When

they are hit by new information that contradicts the

existing pattern, they find themselves in a frightening

situation of uncertainty, insecurity and anxiety. Whoever

is responsible for this becomes the object of hatred and

fury.

For hundreds of years, the Jews have been persecuted

in many countries. Everywhere they encountered

anti-Semitism, suffered from discrimination, became

victims of pogroms, were murdered in the Holocaust.

Even in enlightened countries, almost every Jewish

child absorbed with his mother's milk the belief that the

Goyim hate the Jews, always did and always will. Every

year, on the eve of Passover, in the warm family circle,

millions of Jews repeat the words: "In each generation

they try to destroy us, but God saves us from them."

Zionism was supposed to create a New Jew, but in

practice it only transferred the existing mental pattern to

the new country. Arab opposition to the Zionist

penetration appeared to the Jews as a natural

continuation of the old story of persecution and

pogroms. The existing Jewish pattern was not

shattered, but became even stronger. It created a

feeling of unity, permanency and order. A cheerful song,

beginning with the words "The whole world is against us

/ but we do not care" became a folk dance.

And then Oslo came. Perplexing new perceptions hit

us. The Arabs want peace. Arafat, who only yesterday

was the Arab Hitler, became a partner. The Arabs were

reconciled to our existence. A New Middle East.

Peace, conciliation, mutual respect are just around the

corner.

This picture did not cause happiness. On the contrary. It

caused deep anxiety. It was clear that something was

wrong, The pattern was shaken, and no new one

replaced it. The old map, which described a familiar

landscape, did not show the way anymore. It was

necessary to draw a new map, contradicting all that

was known and doubting all that was thought and felt

until then.

And then, suddenly, a powerful reaction set in. Ehud

Barak, the man of peace, the representative of the left,

killed Oslo and exposed the Arab plot. He proved that

there was no partner. The Arabs want to destroy us.

Thank God, everything returned to what it was before.

What a relief!

After all, in a situation of war and conflict, everyone of

us knows exactly how to behave, what to do. There is

no cause for anxiety. The old map remains true. The

pattern that served us for hundreds of years remains

good for the future.

This causes deep satisfaction. Haven't we said all the

time it's all a big bluff? As Yitzhaq Shamir put it so

succinctly: "The Arabs are the same Arabs, the Jews

are the same Jews and the sea is the same sea."

In this situation, a wonderful national unity is reborn. All

the Jewish parties from left and right can unite. Shimon

Peres can sit in the same government with men like

Ze'evi, Lieberman and Landau, who could give lessons

to Haider and Le-Pen. The media and academia.

almost without exceptions, can join the feast.

Pseudo-leftists of yesterday confess their sins as if they

were in a Soviet meeting of self-criticism. Oh, what a

wonderful unity!

The most repelling exhibition in this orgy is the treason

of the intellectuals. They, who should have drawn the

new map that would lead the people towards the reality

of peace, are betraying their trust. The few, the very few,

who stay true to their mission, are despised and hated.

But on the shoulders of these few the fate of the country

now rests. There is no future for Israel if it goes on

behaving like an armed ghetto. A state is no ghetto, as

the ghetto was no state. In order to exist, the state

needs a new perception of itself and its surroundings,

one that suits the new situation.

And that is, first and foremost, the task of the

intellectuals. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ""The whole world is against us

/ but we do not care" became a folk dance." A perfectly American - or Japanese emperor-worshiping - attitude. "Fuck the world" - therein lies the danger, that they might actually succeed in doing so.



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